Sully: "No more Mr. Nice Gay"

Do you think this question will end up in the Supreme Court and result in Constitutional protection the way abortion did? I'm read The Nine right now and am fascinated by the way the Law has evolved in it's understanding of what is and is not a Constitutional right.

Rod, there are so many lies involved in that "chased out of the Castro district" story that I'm surprised you brought it up again. We were told repeatedly that it showed a violent encounter, when it didn't. We were told repeatedly that some of the gays had kicked the Christians and stolen their bibles, but there's no evidence for it, puzzling considering how many videocameras were brought by the Christians themselves to try to capture just such a dust-up.

I think gays have on the whole been quite peaceful and even emotionally calm compared to other civil rights movements. And I think that's a good thing which should continue. Let's recall that most minority movements do not used Ghandi-like tactics. It has been estimated that 80% of the armed conflicts in the world are between a national government and one of its minorities (Muslims, Basques, Kurds, native tribes, etc.). The African-American civil rights movement in the US certainly had its share of riots and violence. It was not all under the control of Martin Luther King, Jr. Gays have produced only two non-fatal riots in over 50 years of political activity. I doubt we will ever see riots or bombings from gays and lesbians.

Let's remember the context. Those "Christians" (I use quotes so no as to slur Christianity with their behavior) went into an area to where a historically oppressed minority concentrated in order to rub salt into the wounds of their successful effort to rip apart gay families. Those were bigots. If that were Christianity, Christianity would be evil, vile, and disgusting. Fortunately, that as not Christianity. Just bigots abusing Christianity to advance their bigotry.

Also remember that it appears that the people who took the video lied about being physically attacked. The video shows people shouting with anger, but not actual violence.

Fortunately, such attacks masquerading as ministry are not real Christianity. Just bigotry with a dishonest smile.

(And again, why is it OK for anti-abortion people like Dreher to use Nazi and Jim Crow terms to describe their opponents on that issue, but somehow wrong to use the word "bigot" to describe those who would hurt the children of gay parents by weakening the families of those children based solely on anti-gay animus?)

49 percent of the people think homosexuality is immoral

Seems like a low number, actually. I'm sure the number was far higher back at the time of Stonewall (1969) and as you've already noted, Rod, demographics have all but ensured that SSM will be the law of the land before long.

And I urge you to watch the entire video again. Where is the violence, where is the threat, where are the arrests that go with assault? What we see is calmer than the Irish Catholic response to Marching Season, at 2:00 we hear "stay out of our neighborhood if you don't like us" and at 4:00 we hear "don't come back" as the Christian provocateurs walk safely away.

Gee, Nancy, don't hold back. Tell us how you REALLY feel about your gay brothers and sisters in Christ. Does "filthy and disgusting" and "evil for all eternity" qualify as bigotry, I wonder? Or does that still slip in as, ahem, rational and courteous expression of a belief that deserves respect?

This has *got* to be the single stupidest piece of public-relations strategery I've ever heard of.

In my lifetime, the public perception of gay men has gone from (a) a cross between Paul Lynde and the Leatherman from the Village People to (b) Will from *Will and Grace* to (c) a combination of Paul Lynde, the Leatherman from the Village People, and Jorg Haider.

And (c) is *before* the implementation of Bareback Andy's "no more Mr. Nice-Gay" strategery.

I guess Bareback Andy's strategery -- call it (d) -- will add Ernst Rohm to the mix along with Jorg Haider, the Leatherman, and Paul Lynde.

This is so revealing -- the idea that those Christian "bigots" had it coming, and anyway, they weren't beaten, so what's the problem? -- and I encourage y'all to keep talking. I wager that most people, when they see that video, see a small group of peaceable people being driven by an angry mob out of a neighborhood -- a group that has to have police protection to keep from being assaulted. When one learns that those people are Christians whose "crime" was to pray on the street in a gay neighborhood, that will certainly raise some eyebrows and open some eyes. I would be horrified if peaceable gay rights demonstrators were chased out of a conservative Christian neighborhood by an angry mob of screaming Christians. Most people would, and should. But a video like this raises interesting questions about the tolerance conservatives can expect in the future. So does the defenses offered of the angry mob. We all know perfectly well that if that had been a white mob chasing peaceable black civil rights protesters out of their neighborhood, there would have been no defending it.

I haven't read this post, but I love the headline. Worthy of the NY Post! Maybe even the Mirror or Daily Mail.

Well, gays have been heckled by "God hates..." christians for a couple of decades now. That they finally decided to push back one night in San Francisco is surprising to you? Please.

Until we seek and find common ground we are destined to hate each other. If Andrew Sullivan wasn't gay, he could write Rod's blog for him so I don't understand why they pick on each other. Perhaps Rod and Andrew should get a room? Just kidding.

I don't know, man, after the gay ads in Maine were as positive and "nice" as they were, it's hard to think that the gay "face" in public will turn around and automatically be as incendiary as that clip you showed - there is a middle position, and I think Andrew Sullivan is saying that it might be helpful to their cause to show a few, not many, teeth now and then.

As a Christian, also, I would welcome some real debate like that about church history (like Sullivan is talking about), since many elites stereotype it as being so irredeemably negative... it could only make us look better, at this point.

Frankly, this strategy does not surprise me. I used to read Sullivan and I can say that
under the circumstances his reaction is the logical consequence of his stated principles,
conditioned by a self-imposed conflict with many of his former colleagues. It is still not
known who will prevail. One side says that time is with it; the other appeals to tradition.
You can be sure that the situation will remain fluid for years. Despite victories, each side
ought to recall Eliot’s words: there are no lasting victories for there are no lasting defeats
until the eschaton. Predictions are hard, especially about the future. So I won’t make one.
Rather, I’ll conclude that I don’t see how society can progress if we can’t agree on the
one fundamental institution of civilization. Conservatives are painted as intolerant of the
differences between us. That’s not true; rather we stress what truly unifies us.

Conservatives are painted as intolerant of the differences between us. That’s not true; rather we stress what truly unifies us.

In making moral choices, conservatives are significantly more likely to rely on ingroup/outgroup thinking than liberals, if Jonathan Haidt is right.

I mostly disagree with Andrew Sullivan on this. Maintaining the high ground will bring long term rewards. The reason for the fairly meteoric change in public thinking about homosexuality that has occurred in the past few decades has occurred because people can see that we are not monsters or perverts, just normal people making our way. I think any voting campaign strategy has to fit within this paradigm.

I said mostly, because I do think that attacking the message that gay people are predatory toward or otherwise dangerous to children ought to be forceful and vigorous, to identify this modern derivative of the blood libel for the sick evil that it is.

Alan, I think you're mostly right on this. I think people aren't wrong to be concerned about what their children may be taught in schools about the moral status of homosexuality, but anyone who says that gays want to molest your kids because that's what gays do ought to be vigorously opposed. Plus, as a matter of political strategy, the Mr. Nice Gay approach has worked amazingly well in a short time. People forget that the reason MLK and his non-violent approach worked was because they insisted on meeting hatred with love and dignity -- and won over lots of people in the middle. You and I are, of course, on opposite sides of this issue, and I don't see that opposition to gay marriage as evidence of hatred, or the demand for marriage rights as equivalent to what the civil rights protesters demanded. Nevertheless, as a matter of simple strategy, peaceful, dignified protest is likely to win in the long term, and angry, punch-throwing (figuratively) protest is likely to help the opposition.

Anti-gay ads usually appeal to primitive, unarticulated emotions of disdain and disgust at homosexuality.
For "usually" substitute "often," and then google and carefully read Rod's arguments on the subject. And having done so, reconsider your argument.

There are educated and uneducated arguments for and against homosexuality and all its ramifications in society.

"I would be horrified if peaceable gay rights demonstrators were chased out of a conservative Christian neighborhood by an angry mob of screaming Christians."

I seriously doubt it Rod if your response to the Rainbow Lounge raid is any indication of how you would react. I am certain you would resort to silly locker-room humor to soothe your ego at the expense of others and find your humanity after folks call you out on it.

As a Christian, what I am having difficulty understanding is with all of the issues we face as the Body, why we continue to spend so much time and energy on this particular topic. Imagine what could be done if the effort and money being thrown around on being nosey neighbors was redirected at something that in the overall scheme of things really mattered to folks who are on the brink of life and death.

Indy makes a lot of sense. Living your life among neighbors makes a lot more sense than violent outrage, or even than running publicity campaigns like "gayneighbor.org"

Wolver may be right, but the correct standard for political discourse is, anytime a mob inflicts violent retaliation on who are peacefully advocating for an unpopular position, everyone, gay, Christian, atheist, Muslim, agnostic, men, women, Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, should join to suppress the mob, and/or support the efforts of police to do so. Caveat: the police are worthy of support, if they are acting in a professional manner to suppress violence and protect the innocent, not taking out personal grudges upon whoever or whatever happens to be at issue. Not easy, but simple.

I can sympathize with the pain of someone who lost a vote when they really, really believed there side was right. Most of us have suffered that at one time or another. But gay causes, since they represent the direct personal interests of a minority of the population, are not going to get much traction if they trash approximately 50% of the population. (African American causes didn't either -- it was simple arithmetic they had to win support from people who thought of themselves as "white."

Erin Manning:
"In any case, it's a little disingenuous to dismiss these sorts of ads as "nasty" without discussing whether they are accurate. In addition, as far as I know, there is no data on whether or not the presentation of same-sex couples and relationships as a preferred social option to small children in any way affects the children's latency periods, that time in child development when a child prefers same-sex friendships precisely because he/she is in a developmental phase of sexual dormancy--because these same-sex, clearly sexual relationships haven't been so publicly visible to children until the recent past."

A few points:
First of all, I was read "Heather has Two Mommies" when I was in elementary school so I grew up knowing that there were same sex couples and I don't feel that it negatively impacted me or anyone else in any way. Personally if I had children I would not mind if they learned about everything on the list you mentioned (in an age-appropriate way of course). Usually in interacting with modern children my more common reaction is "oh my God, how do they know this stuff" and "oh my God, look at how they are dressed". I think a much more terrifying thing that kids do is pour out their secrets on Facebook, forever harming their future employment and social prospects.

There is no "latency period" for sexual orientation as you conceive of it. You seem to think that kids have no sexual orientation until they learn to be heterosexual around age 15. Sorry but they are probably already gay or straight when they are toddlers. It's one thing to learn about same-sex couples, it's quite another thing to have an adult desire to go to bed with a guy (if you're a guy). Nothing is going to change that. Nothing is "accurate" about what you describe, it's just myths meant to scare.

And theoretically it is possible to ban all mention of same-sex relationships in schools while allowing gay marriage / gay rights, or vice versa. They are truly seperate debates with little link between them, other than people seizing upon this to try to portray gay marriage as a "threat to kids".

Mr. Dreher- You seem to be missing some context in your example. Lets add the correct context. The angry mob of screaming Christians chasing the peaceable gay rights demonstrators out of the Conservative Christian neighborhood would have directly followed the passing of a referendum sponsored by gays which removed Christians existing right to marry other Christians.

The real question here is: to what degree does a society need a shared base of common values in order to hold together? Is there a point when people's basic understanding of what it means to be a human being, what it means to love, what is freedom, become so divergent that they simply cannot stand to live together in the same town or country?

When I hear gay people speak about having a "right" to have their relationships endorsed and approved by the state I honestly think they are living in deep, self-destructive detachment from reality, and that their ideological fantasies are going to do grave harm to themselves and to society.

So, now I am a crazy bigot, some sort of monster. But what can I do? Emigrate? I have to use my best judgement in order to promote the good of my country and my family. It seems to me that this controversy, by hitting what people hold most dear, has tremendous power to split our society to a previously unimaginable degree. And if you think it will go away with time, just look at abortion. I am sure lots of people in the early 70's expected that abortion would gradually gain social acceptance as the old generation died away. It did not. I fear that the fallout from the attempt to redefine marriage and the family will be a hundred time worse, even (especially) if it succeeds. I fear for this country.
At some point people just live in different mental universes and simply cannot comprehend each other except as radical enemies. How can we live together?

Rod's does censor posts he used to laugh at.

>A campaign that in future took on the Catholic hierarchy for its
>tolerance of child abuse while denying grown people marriage rights
>would be a promising start.

Didn't that child abuse get started when gay priests became commonplace? http://blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/2008/02/the-gay-priest-problem-1.html

"I just think that people who insist on telling other people who they can love and marry" Valerie

TR: You can love and marry whoever you want now. The issues are about recognition or not, they're not about legalization or not. This isn't like Georgia in the 1950s or Nevada in the 1940s. No one will imprison or fine you for any adult-consensual marriage or arrangement you deem adult-consensual marriage.

I guess that something that never existed in our history is not happening fast enough is deeply upsetting for some people. It took about twenty years from Perez v Sharp to Loving v Virginia. Nine years after Brown v Board Bull Connor was sicking dogs on protesters and George Wallace was blocking the integration of the University of Mississippi. To expect to go from Lawrence v Texas to gay marriage everywhere in six years is intriguing. Essentially it amounts to saying that because we haven't made the most rapid social change in history it's time to get irate.

And really the angrier approach has already been tried. California ads mocking Mormon missionaries and then getting people fired for funding Prop 8. That turned me from uncertain to anti-SSM. So maybe getting militant will help settle the matter by settling it against you.

Lack of sleep leads to sloppy writing. I wrote:

"On the other hand, forcefully standing up in the arena of public discourse to forcefully debunk the deliberate lies and distortions such as the ones seen by Maggie Gallagher and her ilk are necessary if true equality is ever to be achieved."

I should have said:

"On the other hand, standing up in the arena of public discourse to forcefully debunk deliberate lies and distortions such as the ones sown by Maggie Gallagher and her ilk are necessary if true equality is ever to be achieved."
"

"That being said, looking at that YouTube clip reminded me of one thing: Skokie. Those Christianists, like the neo-Nazis and Klansmen who in 1977 wanted to "peacefully" march through a predominantly Jewish neighborhood which numbered Holocaust survivors among their residents, had as their main goal agitation and provocation, with a heaping side dish of intimidation thrown in for good measure." Spambalaya

TR: Most of your post was good, but this part is more than a little weird. It's weird in maybe an educational way, that there are people who would sincerely connect such obviously disparate things, but still weird.

You can't reasonably compare those people to Klansman and Holocaust deniers. Even if you dislike them it just makes no sense whatsoever.

"Good Christians"? "evil for eternity"? "Nancy Fisk"'s comment smells very, very fishy. Those aren't phrases Christians of any stripe--evangelical, Catholic, mainline Protestant--ever use. They're the kinds of phrases tv writers use to depict smarmy, pious "Christians," when they don't actually know how Christians speak.

Nice job of provocation, though. But do brush up on your Christianese next time, "Nancy."

Spambalaya,

What you fail to recognize is that the homosexualist movement *can't* adopt King's tactics and strategy because one of the key planks of the homosexualist movement is vitriolic rejection of the moral-philosophical basis *for* King's tactics and strategy -- i.e. *Christianity.*

King could win racists and segregationists over by appealing to Christian moral-philosophical warrants that blacks and whites held in commong -- Christian moral-philosophical warrants that trumped racial self-interest.

The homosexualist movement can't do that -- having rejected any metaphysical or theological warrant for the "rights" that it demands, and, increasingly, having rejected any warrant in democratic social contract for the non-homosexualist majority's right *not* to grant the homosexualist movement the "rights" it demands.

The homosexualist movement can't appeal to Judeo-Christian moral-philosophical warrants, because that moral-philosophical warrant-system denies the moral licitness of homosex -- homosex as opposed to homosexuality.

And the homosexualist movement can't appeal to the Enlightenment view of liberal democratic social contract, because majorities in a super-majority of U.S. states have elected *not* to sign on to a revision of the social contract to incorporate a stance toward homosexuality that the majority of citizens reject -- the majority of citizens who still hold to the Judeo-Christian moral-philosophical warrants that have been held to by most people in the Western world for at least the past 1,500 years.

As a result, the homosexualist movement is let with just two things:

(1) What Alasdair MacIntyre calls "emotivism" -- specifically the histrionically emotive expression of what Martin Snigg above calls "libido." Witness Bareback Andy's "No More Mr. Nice-Gay" strategery.

(2) The hope that the democratic social contract that denies homosexualist "rights" on the basis of Judeo-Christian moral-philosophical warrants can be overridden by judicial fiat -- in other words the hope that the social contract can be revised on emotivist grounds by non-democratic means so that a new social contract more amenable to homosexualist libido can then be imposed through force of coercion on an unwilling citizenry.

A "successful" outcome for the homosexualist movement will be nothing at all like the outcomes for the labor movement or the women's movement or the civil rights movement, all of which differ from the homosexualist movement in that they were each based in significant part on appeal to Judeo-Christian moral-philosophical warrants.

A "successful" outcome for the homosexualist movement will be more like the outcome for the abortionist movement, in which the breaking of the democratic social contract by judicial fiat and the forced and coercive imposition of a social revolution from above on an unwilling citizenry has done nothing whatsoever in more than a third of a century to increase support for the killing of unborn children.

Far from increasing support for homosexualism, "success" for the homosexualist movement will instead have the effect over time of galvanizing opposition to homosexualist aims.

Homosexualists will quickly come to be seen not as victims but as victimizers.

They will quickly come to be seen not as a put-upon minority but as an arrogant and abusive aristocracy by which the non-homosexualist majority feels put-upon itself.

Rod, I don't know if you're being deliberately obtuse to stir the pot, or if this paranoia is really where your fear of the loss of religious liberty has taken you.

Let's stipulate that everyone has the right to free speech, and speech that one disagrees with should always be countered with more speech, not violence. That's a given.

What you are blithely missing is the component of provocation involved. Hypothetically, let's say a court has ruled in California that all parents who homeschool their children must hold a teaching degree (I believe that a ruling something like this came down last year and was overturned on appeal). Let's also say this issue was put to a vote in a referendum, and the majority of Californians voted in favor of requiring homeschooler's to hold teaching degrees. This issue disproportionately affects religious people who are electing to homeschool.

Again hypothetically, let's say that 10 days after the referendum vote, a group of gays arrive at an evangelical mega-church in Orange County on the day of a church picnic. They peaceably line the sidewalk outside the church property and unfurl a banner which reads "What Evangelicals believe about the bible is the theological equivalent of adults believing in the Easter Bunny." Already upset by the referendum vote and the effect it will have on their lives and the educational choices they've made for their children, many church members are angered, surround the gay demonstrators and yell insults. The police are called and escort the gay demonstrators out of the area.

Did the gay demonstrators have a right to be there? Sure. But if I saw this event unfolding on a YouTube clip my first thought would be, "Those protesters are idiots. Their timing, after an electoral defeat for evangelicals, was totally provocative. I'm glad no one was hurt, but what a bunch of insensitive goons." If that's blaming the victims, which it partially is, then so be it. It's also human nature. One of the ways we coexist in a civil society is to refrain from going to an opponent's territory after they've suffered a defeat to say, essentially, "nanna nanna boo boo."

We all know perfectly well that if that had been a white mob chasing peaceable black civil rights protesters out of their neighborhood, there would have been no defending it.

Now Rod, is this before or after the peacable black majority had voted to deny rights to the minority white mob and then come into a noted white neighborhood to "pray" for them?

Such an incredibly disingenous comparison, but par for the course.

Indy,

I disagree. Actually it *is* up to us "straights" to tell "gays" what their tactics should be -- and their strategy too. After all, we "straights" are the ones who have it in our power, being the majority by something like a factor of fifty to one, to give or not to give "gays" what they want. I think it would behoove "gays" therefore to know that whether or not Bareback Andy's "No More Mr. Nice-Gay" strategery gets "gays'" the phyrric victory they want of a humpty-dumpty-style redefinition of marriage, what it will never, ever get them is actual acceptance of that humpty-dumpty-style redefinition by anymore of the population than accepts it now -- i.e. a minority. "Gays" or rather homosexalists have two big problems: (1) we live in a semi-democracy, a quasi-democracy, and (2) a semi-democracy, a quasi-democracy made up in very large part of Jude-Christians. So that leaves homosexualists with one or two course they can take to get what they want: (1) they can use aristocratic power in the statist form of judicial fiat to void the democratic social contract set by the Judeo-Christian majority or (2) they can use aristocratic power in both the statist and the private oligarchic or plutocratic forms of the media, the education system, etc to impose or to coerce wherever possible a conversion of the majority of the citizenry from Judeo-Christianity to homosexualist-friendly emotivism or what Martin Snigg labels libido-liberalism. Essentially, the message from the homosexualist camp is either (1) give up democracy because it contradicts homosexualist libidinalism and emotivity or (2) give up Jude-Christianity because it contradicts homosexualist libidinalism and emotivity. Or more precisely, do either (1) or (2) or we'll *screw* you, will *force* you to. Now, if you aren't a homosexualist aristocrat or a homosexualist libidinal-emotivist, why would you do (1) or (2)? And if you are the majority and have at least some means of keeping yourself from been screwed and forced to do something you don't want to do, then why would you not use that majority strength to defend yourself from being screwed? You're right that "gays" can choose their own tactics and strategy. But I thinks it generous rather than rude for those of us who are not "gay" to point out that the reaction of most opponents of homosexualism to Bareback Andy's proposed change in tactics and strategy is likely to be: "Please Br'er Fox, please, please Br'er Fox, don't throw me in that briar patch."

Spambalaya,

With all due respect, and with no pun intended, those who identify as Christian are a small rump within the homosexualist movement, which is very predominantly secularist, atheist, and anti-Christian in its moral-philosophical orientation.

The failure of the homosexualist movement to make its case very convincingly on Christian or any other grounds to a large majority of Christians only goes to prove my point.

Just as there is a small self-identified Christian rump within the homosexualist movement, there is also a small homosexualist rump within Christianity.

But most of Christianity is opposed to the homosexualist movement, in large part because most of the homosexualist movement is opposed to Christianity.

And most of the homosexualist movement is opposed to Christianity because the Christianity of most Christians, of almost all Christians now and in the past, has not provided moral-philosophical warrant for the homosexualist's movement's political aims.

Re: She accepted gay and lesbian relationships with no problem, if they were monogamous, just like any other, but wasn't sure if calling it marriage was acceptable.

This is more or less my position- I don't have a moral problem with homosexual relationships, but I don't think that churches should call them marriages. I have no problem with gay marriage as a civil, political matter though.

Crustacean, if I recall correctly the majority of gays in America are some variety of Christian, so your premise is false. I think the Supreme COurt could intervene, but not before a large number of states have allowed gay marriage on their own, so it won't be for a long while yet.

Indy,

I think you may be right that a majority might one day approve of some sort of state-sanctioned civil union provision in place of state-sanctioned marriage -- a state-sanctioned civil union provision available to homosexuals as as well as everyone else.

I myself would accept that kind of provision as a compromise, so long as it really were available to *everyone* else and not just pairs of people having sex -- i.e. available to polygamous groups of three or more, available to pairs and to groups of three or more people who are not having sex, etc, etc.

Where the rub comes in is that the homosexualist movement will not accept that compromise.

They will stop at nothing short of homosexual sex-partnerships -- must of which are "open" or non-monogamous to some degree -- being recognized by the state as "marriages" equivalent in every respect to the life-long monogamous union of one man and one woman.

They will not accept civil unions and they will not accept any blanket revision of marriage to include polygamous groups and groups of people who are not having sex.

That's because the whole point of the push for same-sex marriage on homosexualists' part is in fact a push to *establish* -- in the Establishment Clause sense -- homosexualism as the official state-sanctioned and state-imposed moral-philosophical position of these United States.

Now, granted, homosexualists may in fact get what they want -- but, if they do, it will mean the end of the a genuinely liberal democratic-republic in the this country, the end of separation of church and state, and the establishment of a kind of ongoing left-liberal libindal-emotivist kulturkampf as the official state-sanctioned and state-enforced moral-philosophical thrust of the American state.

Which in time, in the long run or the short, will threaten to undermine the moral authority and the political legitimacy of the American state.

Spambalaya,

What you fail to recognize this time is that the position of homosexualists now is analogous to the position of segregationists then, just as the position of anti-homosexualists now is analogous to the position of anti-segregationists then.

Homosexualists now want to revise Judeo-Christian moral-philosophical norms to allow for homosexualist ends.

Segregationists then wanted to revise Judeo-Christian moral-philosophical norms to all for segregationist ends.

Anti-homosexualists now want to call the culture back toward Judeo-Christian moral-philosophical norms and away from homosexualist ends.

Anti-segregationists then -- like Martin Luther King -- wanted to call the culture back toward Judeo-Christian moral-philosophical norms and away from segregationist ends.

Anti-segregationists then -- like King -- succeeded, because they were calling the culture back to where it already wrongly purported to be.

Homosexualists now will not succeed in those terms -- in King's terms -- because they are calling the culture even further away than it already is from where it aspires to be.

Homosexulists may well succeed, but not on anti-segregationists' terms, not on King's terms, but rather on abortionists' terms -- i.e. they will succeed in securing a phyrric and probably a temporary "victory," one that will reap them a whirlwind of blown-back resentment and animosity which will probably make the position of homosexuals worse and not better overall than it presently is.

As much as you try to explain it or contextualize it away, the video is what it is, and it tells a story that mainstream Christians and social conservatives would be idiots to ignore.

"it tells a story that mainstream Christians and social conservatives would be idiots to ignore"

Sort of like, 'Get out of Dodge!"?

He11, Rod, gay people have been treated like that for eons. 'We don't want your kind here." is a familiar refrain to gay people.

More than an analogy with segregation or racism, all this reminds me of anti-Semitism. The parallels are much deeper. Like Jews, gays are a partially visible, partially non-visible minority. They are stereotypes as "wealthy" who don't work hard, even though there's little evidence for this. In addition to the blood libel/pedophile parallel, this idea of a secret agenda or and gays plotting to undermind the heterosexual family reminds me of the idea of a "Judeo-Bolshevik conspiracy" against Germans. And this idea that the socially majoritarian and dominant group is "wounded" and "oppressed" by the lobby of a pernicious minority whose tentacles extend everywhere... this is creepy stuff. Surely it must be possible to express opposition to gay marriage / gay rights in way a more honest way, on a religious-theological basis, rather than resorting to these very secular and actually fascistic lines of argument.

Rod:

As much as you try to explain it or contextualize it away, the video is what it is, and it tells a story that mainstream Christians and social conservatives would be idiots to ignore.

We had this discussion the last time you trotted out this clip. Who got hurt there? Who broke the law?

Yes, there was shouting. Yes, it was angry. So now gay people are not allowed to express themselves. So now we are not to be permitted anger when attacked at the ballot box.

At the same time, Christianists (and I deliberately use Sullivan's term to describe the people in the clip; they meet the definition admirably) according to Rod have every right to come into neighborhoods with lots of gay people and exercise their first amendment rights.

So were back to special rights for social conservatives. They're allowed to express themselves; we're not. We're second class, so our demonstrations are illegitimate while social cons are first class and get their demonstrations protected.

And naturally, there's no comment at all on the violence that happened yesterday. Here's the telling quote once more:

Bellamy allegedly told cops that "God made me hate gay people."

Where's the outrage for that? I notice that all the social cons, the "good Christian folk," are quiet.

It's nothing but evil, sponsored by social conservatism, pure and simple. And you deserve to be called on it.

Lily Allen Fan,

The radical force with which homosexualists are allying themselves for the purpose of political expediency is atheist Christophobia or Christophobic atheism -- ergo the coming and appropriately termed "blowback" from Christians and other theists.

As for the anti-homosexual goings-on in Uganda, it's a non-sequitur to bring them up here.

Defense of Judeo-Christian moral-philosophical norms concerning sex does not in any way, shape, or form imply support for violence against homosexuals or anyone else -- quite the contrary, in fact.

A defense that involves the protection even of defenseless unborn infants from being killed can hardly be called a defense that foments violence and death.

Crusty,

"As for the anti-homosexual goings-on in Uganda, it's a non-sequitur to bring them up here."

Not really, considering the movement is backed by American Christians. Seems it isn't just the Bible from which you cherry pick your readings.

Your Name and Liam,

Fascism in general and Nazism in particular draws a disproportionate share of its leaders from among homosexuals.

But it would be as foolish to hold homosexuals in general responsible for fascism or Nazism as it is for you to hold Christians in general responsible for whatever it is that you are trying to hold them responsible for.

You two are merely proving the old saw that a "bigot" is merely a conservative who has made a liberal see the truth -- a conservative who's "spoken truth to power" so to speak.

Enjoy playing the "bigot" card while your chance to play it lasts -- that chance is running out fast as "bigot" loses its rhetorical force through over-use.

Perhaps those of your ideological persuasion should invest in a Thesaurus -- since emotive verbiage is the only leg you have left to stand on, and the English language -- being as rich as it is in near-synonyms with subtle shades of connotation -- should keep you well-supplied with such emotive verbiage for a good long, while to come.

Not that such emotive verbiage will ever do you much more good than it's done now -- i.e. not very much.

There’s actually two sides to this question of tactics and persuasion. Right now, polling suggests that young people are far more accepting of the concept of gay marriage than other age groups. It certainly appears as if the passage of time may affect how these state referendums play out. In Maine this past Tuesday, the vote in the area around a University of Maine campus on overturning the gay marriage law was 81% no, 19% yes. From state to state, young people ages 18-29 poll some 25% to 40% more in support of gay marriage than do the oldest voters (65 and older). Only in 12 out of 50 states do young people fall below the 50% on support of gay marriage; in the remaining states, support among the youngest group ranges from 51 to 73%. Even the 45-64 year old groups polls 10 to 15 points more in favor than do the seniors, although in most states more disapprove than approve of it right now. Yes, it’s a question of what arguments and tactics supporters of gay marriage should make in the future but it’s also a question of what arguments and tactics opponents should make. However one describes the thinking of younger people, I’m not convinced that discussing Judeo-Christian tenets and traditions, anthropology, and philosophy, or bringing up polygamy, is going to trump, “In the eyes of the state, I have the right to marry, why can’t my gay friend marry, too?” That’s just based on what I hear among younger people.

"Because they are consequentialists: they believe that it is permissible to shade the truth, exaggerate half-truths and commit rhetorical deceit when the purpose is noble. They may not realize it, but they believe the end justifies the means."

I didn't read this carefully enough and assumed Liam was referring to gay activists.

It doesn't  make me happy or hopeful.  

What you fail to recognize this time is that the position of homosexualists now is analogous to the position of segregationists then, just as the position of anti-homosexualists now is analogous to the position of anti-segregationists then.

This goes far beyond "shading the truth" and willfully embraces outright dishonesty. Not surprising given your track record here, but nonetheless disappointing to see once again.

Homosexualists now want to revise Judeo-Christian moral-philosophical norms to allow for homosexualist ends.

Just as interracial-marriage advocates sought to revise the Southern Christian societal norms to allow for their ends.

Segregationists then wanted to revise Judeo-Christian moral-philosophical norms to all for segregationist ends.

No, segregationalists were the ones who wanted to preserve the traditional Southern Christian status quo. You're brain is reading history upside-down.

Anti-homosexualists now want to call the culture back toward Judeo-Christian moral-philosophical norms and away from homosexualist ends.

In exactly the same way as segregationalists attempted to do in the '60s.

Anti-segregationists then -- like Martin Luther King -- wanted to call the culture back toward Judeo-Christian moral-philosophical norms and away from segregationist ends.

Anti-segregationists then -- like King -- succeeded, because they were calling the culture back to where it already wrongly purported to be.

Just as SSM activists are calling the culture back to its roots of tolerance and equality for all, while the anti-SSM crowd continues to falsely claim, as the segregationalists did before them, that their values are somehow representative of Christian love and American virtue, and that expanding marriage rights to all loving adult couples will ruin the institution.

Homosexualists now will not succeed in those terms -- in King's terms -- because they are calling the culture even further away than it already is from where it aspires to be.

SSM activists are calling on their fellow Americans to live up to our creed and choose justice over fear and bigotry--that we embrace reason and reject and our darker emotional natures--just as interracial-marriage advocates once did. That you shamelessly indulge in such blatant revisionist history speaks volumes about your side's disregard for both honesty and Christian precedent.

As much as you try to explain it or contextualize it away, the video is what it is, and it tells a story that mainstream Christians and social conservatives would be idiots to ignore.

Yes, if we "contextualize it," then it loses its considerable value as an emotivist (to use Crustacean's cumbersome term) propaganda tool, doesn't it? "[T]he video is what it is," and if the story it tells is a lie, then the truth be damned, eh? This mindset is what you're now embracing as a Christian? Really?

Okay then...

To reiterate my previous observation, Rod: How can you or any thinking, reasonably self-aware person side with such total cretins (and now even go so far as to champion dishonest propaganda in the service of your cause) and then wonder why you're constantly being a labeled as a bigot?

Let me recast my earlier analogy comparing those Christianists with the Skokie neo-Nazis in terms that don't run afoul of Godwin's Law: It's last Thursday night in Philadelphia, the evening after the Yankees won the World Series. A few carloads of triumphant Yankees fans drive into Philly and walk into a sports bar, yelling about how great the Yankees' win was and that the poor pathetic Philly folks really need to abandon the Phillies and start rooting for the Yankees too.

Honestly, do you think for one minute that those Philly bar patrons, still nursing such a bitter defeat, would react with anything near the restraint that the Castro district residents did? For that matter, would you defend the Yankees' fans with the same blind reflexiveness as you did the similarly boorish Christianists in that video, or would you condemn their actions as disrespectful, intrusive and deliberately provocative?

Spambalaya: replies...
November 8, 2009 7:34 PM

.... to Crustaceans excellent posts:

“That you shamelessly indulge in such blatant revisionist history speaks volumes about your side's disregard for both honesty and Christian precedent.”

Crustacean isn’t doing the revising; you are.

Again, up is down and down is up.

You’re saying that Reverend Martin Luther King, Reverend Abernathy, and all the other Pastors, Priests, Nuns, and Christian laymen who fought segregation were not doing so based upon Judao-Christian moral-philosophical norms? You’re saying that the segregationists were? And, I suppose that’s why so many Christians marched, were killed, their churches bombed and millions of Christians worldwide supported MLK?

Have you actually ever read any civil rights history?

The irony in all this is that SSM proponents often vociferously attack Christianity, yet at a deeper level than they realize it’s the moral-philosophical foundation of Christianity which has made possible the very language of egalitarianism, rights, and the dignity of individuals, upon which the Gay movement depends.

Up is down, down is up. Sodomy is sex...etc.

Up is down, down is up. Sodomy is sex...

Ah, so sodomy isn't sex! So you agree that Bill Clinton was truthful when he claimed he "never had sexual relations with that woman" then?

How much more contorted can your arguments get, I wonder? This is starting to provide some genuine amusement. :D

So does the defenses offered of the angry mob. We all know perfectly well that if that had been a white mob chasing peaceable black civil rights protesters out of their neighborhood, there would have been no defending it.

Here's a ball of confusion.

If this was a political act:

Black civil rights protesters were petitioning their government for equal treatment under the law. These Christians were not asking for the right to be treated like homosexuals. Their actions are more like the KKK going to Skokie than like black civil rights protesters going to Selma.

If this was a religious act:

Then manifestly the attempt to proclaim the Good News of salvation was taken as an expression that "you don't like us" by the crowd. If they wish to spread the Good News of Jesus to homosexuals in the Castro then they should reevaluate their methodology, as it manifestly does not work.

I came back to this thread after reading a couple of newer ones and found that the number of posts has been reduced from 103 to 98 with no comments about the deletions from Rod. Then I checked back and realized that the missing posts all concerned a particular sub-thread between Lily Allen Fan and another poster (whose name I don't recall) having to do with an alleged previous post of Rod's that detailed some grade-school same-sex crush or whatnot.

To Rod: If you're going to delete posts from people who are making false allegations, keep in mind that they've already been read by some of us and you should at least state that the poster was full of BS. OTOH, if the post was factual, then you should provide some kind of explanation why it's now gone. Give your readers some credit for being smart and attentive enough to notice when some odd things are going on here. Silencing your critics via quiet deletions doesn't look good, k?

it tells a story that mainstream Christians and social conservatives would be idiots to ignore.

By conflating mainstream Christianity and social conservatism you muddy the waters here, Rod.

Mainstream Christianity is about salvation. The lesson mainstream Christianity should take here is that going to the corner and praying out loud for the conversion of a group deemed to be more sinful than they are is not going to save souls. In fact it has the opposite effect of hardening hearts, for which those Christians are responsible. Better to follow the example of Jesus than that of the Pharisees.

Social Conservatism is concerned with maintaining a stable social order. The lesson social conservatives should take from this is that homosexuals are not going back into the closet. Therefore the question is how to co-opt homosexuals into the existing stable social order, not how to keep them separate from it. Better to bring them in and have them adopt the interests of social conservatives than to keep them outside and have their interests always be opposed.

But to follow you down the path of conflation of things:

There are many immoralities that are both legal and acceptable to social conservatives. When it comes to marriage I offer divorce as the most salient example. How is it that the union of Ronald and Nancy Reagan was recognized as legitimate as it is no less sinful that the union of two gay people.

Interesting post Rod.

Interesting comments. Next month is the twentieth anniversary of ACT-UP descending en masse on St Patrick's Cathedral and desecrating the Eucharist by crumbling it and throwing it to the floor and trowing condoms all around the cathedral. Why? Because the Catholic Church refused to betray the moral code divinely revealed and faithfully handed on. It would not teach that gay sex was okay. It would not teach that gays should wear condoms during fornication (As though all of those activists were leading chaste and celibate lives, pining for the day that Pope John Paul II and Cardinal O'Connor would relieve them of their distress by winking at condoms).

I saw the tolerance and plurality, diversity and respect of the homosexual community in person that day. I saw it in every Mass that ACT-UP disrupted.

Rod is correct. Wait until gay marriage is the law of the land. If desecration of the Eucharist was possible 20 years ago, censorship will be the order of the day once it is legalized.

No more Mr. Nice Gay? That went out the window two decades ago.

Prediction: Clergy are licensed by the state to witness for the state when they perform weddings in church. When gay marriage becomes the law in all 50 states, the states will revoke those licenses for any clergy person refusing to perform a gay wedding.

That's not bigotry. That's an extrapolation from the bigotry and desecration common in St Patrick's Cathedral when O'Connor was Cardinal. I saw gay "love' in action, regarding my Church. Very revealing.

Gwyddion9,

I call homosexual activists walking into my house of worship and desecrating it and the Blessed Sacrament fear mongering taken to a whole new level. The gay community cannot escape the Brownshirt tactics it has already employed against my Church.

You call it fear mongering. I call it a resonable extrapolation from what has already been done to us.

For years, ACT-UP would sit in rows across the Cathedral and stand with their backs turned during Cardinal O'Connor's homilies EVERY SUNDAY. We've already had our right to worship as we wish, without fear of interruption or desecration by the Brownshirts, trampled upon.

Sorry pal. Your team poisoned the well more than twenty years ago. The hateful, vitriolic language employed against people of faith on these threads tells me that nothing's changed.

Michael Swift: "Gay Revolutionary"

from Gay Community News, Feb. 15-21, 1987

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/pwh/swift1.html

We shall sodomize your sons, emblems of your feeble masculinity, of your shallow dreams and vulgar lies. We shall seduce them in your schools, in your dormitories, in your gymnasiums, in your locker rooms, in your sports arenas, in your seminaries, in your youth groups, in your movie theater bathrooms, in your army bunkhouses, in your truck stops, in your all male clubs, in your houses of Congress, wherever men are with men together. Your sons shall become our minions and do our bidding. They will be recast in our image. They will come to crave and adore us.

Women, you cry for freedom. You say you are no longer satisfied with men; they make you unhappy. We, connoisseurs of the masculine face, the masculine physique, shall take your men from you then. We will amuse them; we will instruct them; we will embrace them when they weep. Women, you say you wish to live with each other instead of with men. Then go and be with each other. We shall give your men pleasures they have never known because we are foremost men too, and only one man knows how to truly please another man; only one man can understand the depth and feeling, the mind and body of another man.

All laws banning homosexual activity will be revoked. Instead, legislation shall be passed which engenders love between men.

All homosexuals must stand together as brothers; we must be united artistically, philosophically, socially, politically and financially. We will triumph only when we present a common face to the vicious heterosexual enemy.

If you dare to cry faggot, fairy, queer, at us, we will stab you in your cowardly hearts and defile your dead, puny bodies.

We shall write poems of the love between men; we shall stage plays in which man openly caresses man; we shall make films about the love between heroic men which will replace the cheap, superficial, sentimental, insipid, juvenile, heterosexual infatuations presently dominating your cinema screens. We shall sculpt statues of beautiful young men, of bold athletes which will be placed in your parks, your squares, your plazas. The museums of the world will be filled only with paintings of graceful, naked lads.

Our writers and artists will make love between men fashionable and de rigueur, and we will succeed because we are adept at setting styles. We will eliminate heterosexual liaisons through usage of the devices of wit and ridicule, devices which we are skilled in employing.

We will unmask the powerful homosexuals who masquerade as heterosexuals. You will be shocked and frightened when you find that your presidents and their sons, your industrialists, your senators,your mayors, your generals, your athletes, your film stars, your television personalities, your civic leaders, your priests are not the safe, familiar, bourgeois, heterosexual figures you assumed them to be. We are everywhere; we have infiltrated your ranks. Be careful when you speak of homosexuals because we are always among you; we may be sitting across the desk from you; we may be sleeping in the same bed with you.

There will be no compromises. We are not middle-class weaklings. Highly intelligent, we are the natural aristocrats of the human race, and steely-minded aristocrats never settle for less. Those who oppose us will be exiled.

We shall raise vast private armies, as Mishima did, to defeat you. We shall conquer the world because warriors inspired by and banded together by homosexual love and honor are invincible as were the ancient Greek soldiers.

The family unit-spawning ground of lies, betrayals, mediocrity, hypocrisy and violence--will be abolished. The family unit, which only dampens imagination and curbs free will, must be eliminated. Perfect boys will be conceived and grown in the genetic laboratory. They will be bonded together in communal setting, under the control and instruction of homosexual savants.

All churches who condemn us will be closed. Our only gods are handsome young men. We adhere to a cult of beauty, moral and esthetic. All that is ugly and vulgar and banal will be annihilated. Since we are alienated from middle-class heterosexual conventions, we are free to live our lives according to the dictates of the pure imagination. For us too much is not enough.

The exquisite society to emerge will be governed by an elite comprised of gay poets. One of the major requirements for a position of power in the new society of homoeroticism will be indulgence in the Greek passion. Any man contaminated with heterosexual lust will be automatically barred from a position of influence. All males who insist on remaining stupidly heterosexual will be tried in homosexual courts of justice and will become invisible men.

"We shall rewrite history, history filled and debased with your heterosexual lies and distortions. We shall portray the homosexuality of the great leaders and thinkers who have shaped the world. We will demonstrate that homosexuality and intelligence and imagination are inextricably linked, and that homosexuality is a requirement for true nobility, true beauty in a man.

"We shall be victorious because we are fueled with the ferocious bitterness of the oppressed who have been forced to play seemingly bit parts in your dumb, heterosexual shows throughout the ages. We too are capable of firing guns and manning the barricades of the ultimate revolution.

Tremble, hetero swine, when we appear before you without our masks.

/////

OBVIOUSLY this was no joke to Mr. Swift.

BTW,

"Andrew Sullivan suggests that gays should go hard-negative on their opponents in marriage campaigns"

Gee, there's a novel approach.

Sorry for the multiple posts, Rod.

Gerard Nadal

We're talking about the U.S. not Canada. Canada does not have the 1st amendment, which we, in the U.S. have. There is a big difference and why this wouldn't happen in the U.S.
The rules are different in the two respective governments. What happened in Canada is protected in the U.S.
Sorry, but you're wrong and spreading fear.
We are discussing the USA not Canada.

"Honestly, do you think for one minute that those Philly bar patrons, still nursing such a bitter defeat, would react with anything near the restraint that the Castro district residents did?" Spambalaya

TR: This might have some validity. Possibly some of those gay guys were also bar or nightclub people. I don't expect much from straight men in sports bars so why expect better from men that maybe coming from gay bars? Good point.

The thing is in both cases I think the behavior, of Philly fans mad at the Yankee interlopers or gays mad at the Christian interlopers or the other side, is not per-se a good or defensible things. It's an obnoxious tribalism on all parts.

However this is not precisely how "your side" seems to be seeing it. It's not "we're obnoxious, but so are they" it's been more "we were being attacked by Neo-Nazi Christianist scum" which doesn't seem convincing unless one is already convinced your right. (Or unless you have footage or solid evidence of the Christian doing more than singing songs and grinning stupidly)

G9,

Hard as this is to accept, heterosexual Christians of traditional faith accept Scripture and Tradition that hold marriage to have been created by God, for men and women, with the generation of new life central to sacrament. They also maintain that while the orientation may not be willed, the sexual behavior is entirely within a gay’s self-control, subordinated to free will. In this, gays are no different from anyone else not married. God orders that sex is for husbands and wives only.

Traditional Christians cannot sanction changing the parameters of marriage. It simply is not ours to do with, as we will. Being God-given for our benefit, it is ours to defend.

And, yes, our laws are reflective of our collective value and virtue systems, regardless of origins. Demanding that Christians violate their consciences, their obligations, as they understand them, and calling them the ugliest epithets when they don’t, betrays the ugliness of the gay rights movement. It confirms why they must not give in. You have already equated our faith to being synonymous with bigotry. That’s not a tactic. That’s an abiding belief that won’t go away when you get what you want.

The hate crimes legislation tells us as much.

So did the desecration of St. Patrick's Cathedral.

So does the Canadian Experience.

Spambalaya,

The denial of what has already happened here, is happening here, is happening in Canada makes you look rather silly. Telling me to grow up because I do see these things makes you look desperate.

Freedom of religion? That's why faithful Christians get tagged as bigots here. Because gays see the exercise of that freedom, in a manner not to their liking, as the practice of bigotry, homophobia, etc. I was at St. Patrick's and witnessed the foretaste of things to come, NOT because we taught homophobia, but because we would not abandon our teaching on contraception.

Don't presume to preach to me about reasoned debate, especially against the backdrop of bullying tactics employed by gays on these threads, by gays in the broader media, by gays and their allies in Canada. Gays, as a group, surrendered civility in discourse a long time ago. Something to do with narcissism, I suppose.

Gerard Nadal,

Preach it, brother! Preach it!

Gerard,

Shame on you. What you wrote is false (bearing false witness is a sin, remember).

I am from Canada, and when you write, "The denial of what ... is happening in Canada" you are lying. Not a single priest/pastor/rabbi/imam has been forced to marry anyone against the tenets of their faith.

It. Is. NOT. Happening.

Nomilk
November 9, 2009 12:37 AM
This is exactly why I call Sully the Sultana of Sodom. His homosexual rights agenda means the equivalent of Islamic dhimmitude for Christian believers, i.e., second-class status and persecution for public displays of our beliefs.

////

They want our children.

All of whom are "questioning youth."

Massachusetts and California (Sodom and Gomorrah anew) prove that.

Yes, yes. Let's take off the gloves.

Sully?

Gerard is very upset about one incident that happened, as his own post points out, TWENTY YEARS ago. He is understandably hurt by this outrage to things he holds sacred. But has an epidemic of desecration ensued? Not to my knowledge. Twenty years have passed, and Mass continues to be said all over the country in peace, without daily fear of break-ins by the dastardly minions of ACT-UP. He also left out the context in which that one incident happened--that gay men were dying by the hundreds of thousands, and the Catholic church was doing its best to prevent simple public health measures that could have saved some of those lives. The Church is still doing the same things, of course, both here and in Africa and all over the world, yet in spite of that, gay activists have NOT taken up church desecration as their standard operating procedure.

"Mere_Christian" quotes Michael Swift--also, let it be noted, from 1987, more than twenty years ago. I could find you rants that were equally extreme, coming from more "mere Christians:" not just the notorious wack jobs like Fred Phelps or Paul Cameron, whose lies are still eagerly appropriated by Christians, but from more prominent pulpits. If you added up all the threats and vile insults to gay people published by prominent Christians over the last twenty years, it would drown out the voice of poor Michael Swift in an torrent of bile.

The heterosexual panic going on here is a classic, gorgeous example of what Mary Daly called "patriarchal reversal." You place all the blame for the very things you are doing yourselves on those who are in fact the victims of your own bad actions, while declaring yourselves innocent. Minds engaged in this practice become impervious to facts, no matter how often the reality is presented to them. It's almost embarrassing to watch this desperate squirming from people who normally behave like rational entities.

As an aunt of a homosexual man whom I love very much. I still believe the ideal of marriage belongs soley to the union of a man and a woman. The ideal of marriage was based on the children that would come from this sacred union. As for it being a guarantee for fidelity, or a contract that will keep people together..it can not. So what is the difference between a civil union that would guarantee a partner the same rights as that of marriage? If it comes down to wanting to be married in a church..there are many churches who will proform that rite... so where exactly is the problem?

We quite easily have managed to draw the distinction between legality and morality when it comes to heterosexual sexual matters from pre-marital sex to adultery, divorce and remarriage.

Uhhh, no we haven't. That fact that that such a "distinction" is fallacious should be painfully obvious.

Uhhh, no we haven't.

So is adultery illegal, or do churches teach that it's OK?

Which is exactly why SSM will end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The fact that the government does not 'equally' recognize civil vs. marriage is wrong AND because religion is used to oppress a portion of the population saying 'you don't deserve', will eventually end up at the Supreme Court.

Whether or not someone is married in a church is only valid because of the obvious beliefs of the individuals in question. The government does not recognize the marriage because it was done in a church. THAT has nothing to do with legally recognizing a union. Not important to the government.

The first amendment protects those who wish to use their bible as a club so conservatives are safe with their justification. If the first amendment has been lessened in any way, it was done under the Bush administration. It was the Conservative Christians who hailed Bush as their political savior and justified whatever he did. Granted, it was, in their minds, done to give them an advantage, but it will eventually come back and bite them.

SSM will happen in the U.S. The world will not end and all the fear mongering will be finally seen as exactly that...fear mongering, what conservatives do best!

Crusty: "The failure of the homosexualist movement to make its case very convincingly on Christian or any other grounds to a large majority of Christians only goes to prove my point."

Perhaps they don't need to make arguments in Christian terms? Last time I checked, we lived in a society where one's rights are determined according to the Constitution, not the Bible.

Hector: "This is more or less my position- I don't have a moral problem with homosexual relationships, but I don't think that churches should call them marriages. I have no problem with gay marriage as a civil, political matter though."

Personally, I don't care if a church recognizes my marriage. I'm Catholic and it's a pretty safe bet that if I should ever be so lucky as to fall in love again and decide to remarry (to a man), the Church will have no part of it. Fine with me, and I'd say the overwhelming majority of gay folks feel as I do.

What matters to me (is) is that I (we) get treated equally by our government. I pay taxes the same as everyone else, yet if I were to marry, I would be placed in a lesser category by the federal government I support through my tax dollars. A stright man is free to marry the one he loves and get all kinds of financial and legal protections as a result. A gay man or woman cannot. In fact, federal law specifically targets and singles out gay people for federally inferior status, even if they are legally married in a state where all have marriage equality. If anything, the gay marriage issue is a 21st century form of the Revolutionary War concept of taxation without representation. Sure, the feds will take my tax $$, but I don't get treated equally by the law. Is that fair?

Morality and theology ought to have nothing to do with getting a state-issued license.

(For the record, I think marriage is more than just getting a license -- it takes quite a bit of honor, commitment, trust, and most of all love. Some choose to sanctify their marriages through a religious ceremony and I say more power to 'em. But when a state is in the business of issuing licenses, it has to do so on fully equal terms. It ought not discriminate among its own citizens.)

the Catholic Church was (and remains) the single-largest provider of medical services for those with HIV/AIDS in the United States

This ties in nicely with your later comment:

I should not, through our system of confiscatory taxation, be forced to pay for my neighbor’s rubbers. That others would militate for that is simply indecent.

It is true that Catholic Charities provide a lot of services. They do so largely under contract with local and state governments, using TAX DOLLARS to support the work. YOU don't want YOUR tax dollars to cover PUBLIC HEALTH necessities. I could take the same approach, of course, and oppose prenatal care. After all, I'm certainly not going to need it or cause anyone else to need it.

It really is that simple.

Public Health officials should make decisions about the appropriate role of condoms and of publicity campaigns promoting condoms, and they should do so based on measurable metrics. Condoms DO save lives in the gay male community. It's been proven over and over. YOU may not want your tax dollars to help. Fine. They can use mine. I pay taxes, too.

People who wish to get laid should buy their own rubbers.

Shhhh... you wouldn't want the Archbishop to hear you give that sort of advice.

YourName: First, how was my post an implication that I think everyone is stupid? Quite the opposite, actually. I'm sorry you feel that way, but it's not an honest reading of my post.

Second, I never said you have the "right" to marry the one you love. That's not even an accurate account of what I said. Please re-read my post. What I said was that a straight person "is free to marry the one he loves and get all kinds of financial and legal protections as a result." There's nothing false or inaccurate about my statement that marriage carries with it a host of rights and privileges (e.g., spousal immunity in legal proceedings, tax benefits, presumed healthcare proxy rights, SS survivor benefits, inheritance rights, custodial rights, the list goes on and on). My statement is verifiably true -- I doubt you could find one SSM opponent who would disagree that certain rights go along with marriage.

So, having established that I never said you (or I) had the "right" to marry the one you (or I) love, perhaps you would like to know who did? The Supreme Court in "Loving v. Virginia" where it described the right to marry as "a basic civil right of man." (One would assume they also meant to include "woman".)

Now, please turn on the Sarcas-O-Meter: if someone doesn't know you exist, I'd hardly call him (or her) your love. An object of your affection, perhaps, or perhaps a victim of your stalking -- that's a joke. My understanding of love is that it is freely given between two people and is an equally shared endeavor. Love is the ulimate "meeting of the minds", the union of two equal and open partners. Dreaming about someone from a distance, or plastering photos of Cameron Diaz all over your walls, does not forge a relationship. It hardly makes her your love and I suspect such "relationships" would rarely, if ever, result in marriage. Sarcasm over.

How about not putting your penis into another man's anus in the first place? Seems to me that that will save even more lives.

David, my friend, you have issues.

Gerald Nadal

"G9,

Okay, lets discuss Shiela Jackson Lee's HR 256 which lays the groundwork for Government to assess the origins of one's "hate" crimes. Hmmm..."

The hate crimes bill does not legislate speech codes and it does not apply in cases where there is no bodily harm."

Priests, imams, rabbis and cultists can still condemn us to hell and call us sodomites during their "homilies" with impunity. Should they, however, go outside and pound the gay person to death with a baseball bat while condemning that victim to hell because he or she had the "audacity" to hold the hands of his or her same-sex partner's hands, he (the priest, rabbi, etc) can be charged with a hate crime.

This was not a hate speech bill; it was a hate crimes enhancement bill.

At best, hate crimes laws are redundant. If you commit murder, and it is fairly prosecuted as murder, it doesn't matter what your excuse was. That's why the two men who beat Matthew Shepherd to death are serving life in prison. (Or would we be more liberal if we apply the death penalty, but only if it was a hate crime?) Similarly, if you commit aggravated assault, mayhem, rape, arson, or other serious felonies, and offer as a mitigating circumstance, "s/he was a ________________" your motive still doesn't matter, you are guilty and will be sentenced accordingly. At worst, hate crime laws blur distinctions between properly protected speech and properly prohibited acts. Does anyone realize that the Mormon Church could not be forced by any federal or state civil rights law to admit people to membership who were "not white"? No government jurisdiction. No crime committed. If you feel bad about it, go join another church. Now they decided its OK, but there aren't long lines of African Americans asking to join. Ditto for a Baptist church that refuses to host a same sex wedding. Take it to the Metropolitan Baptist Church.

There is one limited legitimate purpose to hate crime laws, which is similar to federal civil rights laws. If a state refuses to enforce its criminal laws, because the judiciary, the jury pool, the prosecutor's office, thinks its OK because the victim was a "_________________" then it makes sense to have the federal justice department authorized to step in. That could have convicted the killers of Emmit Till for instance. But, when the state of Wyoming locks up two young Aryans for beating a gay man to death, we don't really have a problem with adequate laws. Murder is murder is murder. That's all we need to establish. No excuses.

John D

Your stats about anal sex are inflated on both sides. It's more like 50% for gay male couples, and 25%-30% for straight couples. But if you number gay men at about 5% of the male population, you're overall point remains.

Rod, I am posting this comment with my real, actual full name. I grew up in Michigan and Illinois. I am a 29-year-old conservative Christian, and my dad is the pastor at a small church in Indiana.

These "christians" went into Castro the week after Prop. 8 passed to "pray" for homosexuals? Do you expect ANYBODY to take that seriously? Do you really think we're that stupid? I hate to break it to you, but prayer doesn't work better when you're closer to the people you're praying for. But hey, they were just serving Jesus, right? I mean, didn't he say "When you pray, go into a neighborhood full of people you have just denied civil rights to, and pray in their general direction"?

No. He said to go into your closet (resisting the closet joke here 'cause I'm trying to stay serious). Am I saying that the crowd was justified to threaten these people, or do I think these "christians" deserved to be ill-treated by the crowd? No. But were these "christians" mistreating the residents of Castro? Definitely. And hey Rod, if these evil homosexuals aren't Christians, what do you really expect from them? Do you expect them to be better at showing Christian love or "loving their enemies" than people who ACTUALLY CLAIM TO BE FOLLOWERS OF CHRIST?

Do you really expect that little out of the church? Because to me this is pathetic. Hold the Church accountable. Yes there are references to homosexuality being sin in the Bible. A handful. And there are endless references to caring for the poor and marginalized, endless references to treating everybody with love and kindness, whether you think they are sinners or not. I have read your columns, and I know you're aware of this. In the past few decades, our country, supposedly founded on the principles of a guy who said "blessed are the peacemakers," has fought numerous wars of choice, we have accepted torture in public discourse, and all the while we have done little to nothing to stop global disease and starvation, to say nothing of genocide in places where it's not politically convenient to intervene. And the church has done nothing about all of it, when it wasn't actively cheering it on. Instead, we fight tooth and nail about something that is mentioned a handful of times, while conveniently ignoring most of the Bible.

And instead of holding the Church accountable, you point at the evil violent gays. Well if you can't be gay and Christian, what do you expect? And if you're actually a Christian and we're all actually Christians, WHAT'S OUR EXCUSE?

Mere_Christian:

I'm not sure what CS Lewis would think about your name combined with your speech here, but I would encourage you to hear what God said to Israel about Sodom:

"Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen. Samaria did not commit half the sins you did. You have done more detestable things than they, and have made your sisters seem righteous by all these things you have done. Bear your disgrace, for you have furnished some justification for your sisters. Because your sins were more vile than theirs, they appear more righteous than you. So then, be ashamed and bear your disgrace, for you have made your sisters appear righteous."

I think you'll find that the problems with poverty (you know, mitigated by "helping the poor and needy) are lower here in Massachusetts than most of the rest of the country. So who is Sodom, now? And when the LORD identified the sin of Sodom, how come He never even referenced anything sexual?

Also, quite frankly, having read about a gay man being stabbed with a screwdriver outside a gay bar while the assailant yells "faggot" makes a few aggressive Christians getting shouted at with "get out" and "f--- you" seem a little mild.

Mr. Dreher-Without context, I'll hold up videos of my 20 year history of turning the other cheek toward American pastor Fred Phelps' crusade against gays to your one Christian prayer group being shouted at and escorted out of Castro, any day.

dggdydg:

All that needs to be said about Fred Phelps can be found at the excellent web site,

http://www.godhatesshrimp.com/

Really, its all right there in Leviticus. So let your long-suffering turning of the other check end, and LAUGH at the poor bufoon! As either Martin Luther or Thomas More said "the devil, that proud spirit, cannot bear to be mocked." Goons like this THRIVE on righteous outrage, like Antaeus hitting the earth.

Rod,

What do you think the all time score is of the following:

Christian mobs chasing peaceful gays

vs

Gay mobs chasing peaceful Christians?

And while we're at it, how about:

Christian mobs chasing peaceful gays, and subsequently torturing and/or killing the gays

vs

Gay mobs chasing peaceful Christians, and subsequently torturing and/or killing the Christians

I'd be interested to hear your estimate.

"Rod,
What do you think the all time score is of the following:
Christian mobs chasing peaceful gays
vs
Gay mobs chasing peaceful Christians?
And while we're at it, how about:
Christian mobs chasing peaceful gays, and subsequently torturing and/or killing the gays
vs
Gay mobs chasing peaceful Christians, and subsequently torturing and/or killing the Christians
I'd be interested to hear your estimate."

Oh Steve, come now. Perspective and context completely blow away Rod's narrative about mean, nasty gay people just hate good, wholesome Christians, just, JUST BECAUSE. That's not very nice of you.